In Praise Of A Trial That Never Was

November 21, 1986|By Greg Dawson, Sentinel Television Critic

It was bound to come to this -- a mock trial of Lee Harvey Oswald on television -- and I plead guilty to enjoying it. Your enjoyment may vary. It depends on your tolerance for gruesome detail, such as what did they do with the president's brain and when did they do it?

There has never been anything like On Trial: Lee Harvey Oswald on American TV (Showtime). It's not a drama or a docudrama or a re-creation or People's Court on a grand scale. There are no actors, though defense attorney Gerry Spence gives an Oscar-caliber performance in what I'm afraid is a losing cause.

It's an unscripted trial before an actual judge, with real attorneys, authentic witnesses, official evidence and a jury selected from the rolls of the Dallas courts. But since the defendant is already dead, it wasn't really necessary for the Showtime press release to explain that ''the verdict is not legally binding.''

The jury's verdict was not on the tape sent to critics. It will be revealed Saturday night (the 23rd anniversary of President Kennedy's assassination) at the conclusion of the 5 1/2-hour presentation. The first three hours of On Trial will air tonight at 8 o'clock, with part two scheduled for the same time Saturday.

Unfortunately, Showtime has robbed this borderline project of dignity it can't spare by setting up a 900 number for viewers to call in their verdicts. This drags it down to level of the original phone poll on Saturday Night Live when Eddie Murphy let viewers decide whether or not to boil Larry the Lobster. The phony poll saved Larry's tail, but Oswald may not be so lucky.

Despite the wizardry of defense attorney Gerry Spence, who could plant reasonable doubt in your mind about the sun rising in the east, the evidence is overwhelming that Lee Harvey Oswald fired fatal shots at President Kennedy from a sixth-floor window of the Texas School Depository on Nov. 22, 1963. Testimony from friends and co-workers about Oswald's actions that day suggests that if he wasn't going about the business of assassinating a president, he was doing one heck of an impression.

Whether anyone else fired shots from the depository or the famous ''grassy knoll'' is another matter entirely, and Spence raises enough troubling questions to give the conspiracy buffs hope. Prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi, who put Charles Manson away, may nail Oswald's coffin shut, but he still can't explain the so-called ''magic bullet.''

According to the Warren Commission Report, the rifle bullet passed through President Kennedy's back and neck, entered Texas Gov. John Connally under the armpit, shattered a rib on its way to Connally's wrist, where it crushed a bone, then passed through his thigh and landed on the car seat. The flight pattern was similar to that of I-4 through Orlando.

''Bullets do not react that way even in comic books,'' testifies an expert for the defense who believes bullets came from more than one direction. ''Without the single-bullet theory there has to be more than one shooter.''

Some parts of On Trial are not for the squeamish, such as Spence's grisly inquiry into the mysterious disappearance of the dead president's brain and how he believes that it rendered the official autopsy useless.

But it's still recommended viewing for anyone who wants a refresher course in the facts and fictions of the most important murder case never brought to trial in the history of the United States.